OF EARTH. 



77 



Take rain-water of the equinox, a sufficient quantity. Boil with 

 store of dung of oxen till it be very strong, then dissolve one pound of 

 saltpetre in every pottle of the water ; in this, a little tepid, macerate 

 your seeds for twenty-four hours ; dry them gently, rather with a cloth 

 than by the fire, and sow in the most barren earth, or water fruit-trees 

 with the liquor, for prodigious effects. Or thus : 



Take two quarts of the same water, dung of oxen as before ; boil to ' \ 



the consumption of half ; strain and cast into the percolation two hand- 

 fuls of bay salt, and as much saltpetre. Another : 



Take rain-water which has stood till putrefied ; add to it oxen, pigeon, 

 or sheep-dung ; expose it for insolation a week or ten days, then pass it 

 through a coarser strainer ; infuse more of the same soil, and let it stand 

 in the sun a week longer ; strain it a second time, and add to it common 

 salt and a little ox-gall. Another : 



Take quick-lime, and sheep-dung at discretion ; put these into rain- 

 water, four fingers eminent ; to ten pints of this liquor, add one of 

 aquavitas ; macerate your seeds, or water with it any lean earth, where 

 you would plant for wonderful effects. Another : 



Infuse three pounds of the best Indian nitre in fifteen gallons of water ; 

 with this irrigate your barren mould. It was successfully tried amongst 

 tulips and bulbs, where the earth should by no means (as we have said) 

 be forced by composts. But a gentler than either, is, 



A dilution of milk with rain-water, sprinkled upon unslacked lime, 

 first sifted on your beds ; and so after every watering, the lime repeated. 



These, with divers more which I might superadd, not taken and tran- 

 scribed out of common receipt-books, and such as pretend to secrets, but 

 most of them experimented, I thought fit to mention, that upon repeti- 

 tion of trials, the curious might satisfy themselves, and as they have op- 

 portunity improve them ; whilst, perhaps as to irrigations, less exalted li- 

 quors were more natural. And What if essays were made of liquors per 

 lixivium, the plant reduced to ashes : might it not be more connatural, 

 since we find by more frequent trial, that the burning of stubble, before 



